House of Wayne
by lolololabilly
Summary: A woman named "Bonnie Lately" has set her sights on Bruce Wayne, claiming to be his half-sister. She wants her share of the family legacy, & her evidence is hard to deny. But who is she really, & why is she so desperate to call herself a Wayne?


She looked like him.

That was, unfortunately, the first and most prominent thing that he had noticed about her, and all that he had been paying attention to since the meeting had begun ten minutes earlier.

She was taller than he had expected her to be. Even ignoring the fact that she was wearing grey pumps, she seemed to stand eye-to-eye with him, though in actuality he was at _least_ six inches above her. It was her ego that made her tall, and Bruce could find it in himself to relate to that. Presenting himself as an arrogant, socializing playboy for several years had taught him all of appearance and presentation, and Bonnie Lately seemed just as familiar with that concept.

When she had entered the conference room, her eyes had found him and did not look away for some time (a gesture that he had mimicked). She was sizing him up, unaware of the lawyers that were in the room, or anything else. It was her and him and nothing but eye contact, and whoever blinked first would lose. The stare down had ended as quickly as it begun, and he noticed that, unlike his dark eyes, hers were bright and pale blue, like a morning sky. But they were just as critical as his were, and they gave nothing away except her disdain for the proceedings.

In that, too, Bruce could relate.

He noticed that she shared his stubborn jawline, set in a more oval face. When either of the lawyers had spoken, she regarded them each with an intent stare – one eyebrow slightly raised – just as he did. Her cheekbones were defined like his, but the angles in her face were softer. He even imagined that when she smiled (which perhaps was as little as he did), hers would be small and private, like his own. He gave the woman sitting across from him another scrutinizing glance, which she returned, then turned to stare at her lawyer, who was nervously shuffling papers. If Bruce had been a different man, a man of a less inquisitive nature, the simplicity of her physical appearance and the evidence she presented would have convinced him.

He would have believed she was his half-sister.

But Bruce refused to be a different man. There were differences between them, he had noticed. Where his hair was a bluish-black, hers was stark white – even her eyebrows and the tiny hairs on her arms. She hadn't spoken a word since the meeting had started, where Bruce had had a polite conversation with his lawyer, and then a more formal one with hers. She had an annoying habit of tapping her nails on the table, the arms of her chair – even on the arms of her glasses. And – he noticed – her ears stuck out.

Yet even in their mannerisms were some strange similarities. They sized each other up with quick, practically synchronized sideways glances. When Bonnie began to tap her nails on the table, Bruce drummed his fingers in response. They had sighed in frustration together three times in a row now, and when Bruce had ran a hand through his hair and crossed his arms, Bonnie had flung her hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms as well.

It was unnerving to watch, and even more to be a part of.

Mr. Hershaw, Miss Lately's lawyer, had noticed these similarities as well, and seemed confident in proving his client's case, if not also a tad uncomfortable.

"Well, I believe we can proceed, as long as Mr. Wayne and his lawyer have no reservations."

The sharp-looking blond man sitting next to Bruce adjusted his glasses and leaned toward his client.

"We'll be going on record after this, so if there's anything you want to say to her that you'd rather _not_ be repeated –"

"I'm fine." There was nothing to say. Even as Bruce, he couldn't think of a cutting remark to make on Bonnie's appearance, her character, or this farce of a claim against him. What little effort he put into his image had been redirected at her, analyzing her posture and behavior, trying to discover what secret she seemed to be hiding from him. Trying to discover why, of all times and out of all people, it was now, and her.

"So, we'll be negotiating the terms of the settlement now," Mr. Hershaw began, "although I, like Miss Lately, am struggling to understand _why_ this has to even be an issue."

"Mr. Hershaw, please don't insult my client or myself. We're just as uncomfortable with the situation as you are, and _we_ are the ones that have been dragged into this…attempt at fame-grabbing."

"Fame-grabbing? Miss Lately has provided _substantial_ amounts of validated evidence to prove to Mr. Wayne _and_ yourself the history of her and her mother's relationship with Thomas Wayne AND how she is justified in seeking out her share of the Wayne legacy, not just its fortunes."

"So, you're saying that Miss Lately is completely uninterested in the perks of being an inheritor of the Wayne fortune, a billion-dollar corporation that has ties to almost every industry known to man?"

"Mr. Selleck, the financial aspects of this claim are but a speck on the radar in comparison to her actual goal. You've made it seem like all my client wants is a monthly paycheck and her name on the front page, when in reality she is looking for the family that she _never_ had."

Kevin Selleck laughed at that, a sarcastic laugh that Bruce did not share (and neither, he saw, did Bonnie). This was far from a laughing matter for him. Bonnie Lately, pretty face and neat papers and all, was trying to persuade Bruce into believing that his father had been an unfaithful man; a man that would love another woman and care for another child in secret.

Whatever Thomas Wayne may have been perceived of during his life, Bruce knew – he _knew_ – that his father had been a good man. An honest man. A second family, a separate life – that was as far from Thomas Wayne as Bruce was from Batman.

Kevin had regained his composure and adjusted the thin-framed glasses on his sharp nose. "Mr. Hershaw, as my client said, you are asking him to believe in some ludicrous allegation that would –"

"It's ludicrous to assume that a man had more than ONE child, really –"

"No, but it is ludicrous to assume that this particular man would deliberately ignore his own child when he was immensely generous to an entire city of people that he barely knew!"

"So, because of Mr. Thomas Wayne's generosity with the people of Gotham, you think that he would be equally indulgent with an illegitimate child that would sully his infamous reputation?"

"Well if Miss Lately was so special –"

"Enough!"

Bonnie Lately's eyes burned with rage and slight embarrassment. She had lost her cool and slammed the table with her fist, spilling water over Mr. Selleck's copies of the letters and birth certificate. Her hand shook, Bruce noticed, and he could not be sure if it was in anger or fear.

"Miss Lately!" Mr. Hershaw said in shock. He fumbled to move his copies out of the growing puddle, and clumsily set his hand on her fist. She jerked away, her eyes locked onto Bruce. There was no one else in the room to her, he realized. No one else that mattered but him. It wasn't the lawyers that needed convincing, it was him, and so her effort was focused on him.

"Perhaps we should take a break and reconvene –"

"No," she said quietly. Her voice was soft and deep, and would have been calming if not for the anger that edged the tone. "I am tired of this bickering, tired of paying a man to speak for me when I know what I want and know what I'm after. Bruce," She turned to him. The look in her eyes had softened, the anger there but restrained, and she did not blink. She did not falter. He straightened himself and nodded.

"You see me as an intruder. You think I'm here to leach off of your family, to take what's yours and give nothing back. But you are so _far_ from the truth that it makes me sick. You love Thomas Wayne, as every son loves his father, and you see me here, with his ghost in my face, and you are angry. You think I'm here to belittle your grief and the life that you suffered without him. I understand," she said, pleading in her voice. "Look, I get it. But what you think of me, and what you think I am, is not _real_. I loved Thomas Wayne, as every _child_ loves their parent, and I cried into my pillow every night after his death. I wanted to go to the funeral – I _begged_ my mother to let me go – but she said we couldn't. She said that people would notice and that people would talk. So we grieved together in silence and kept our secrets to ourselves. You think I want to take Wayne Corp for my own, to own the business and reap the benefits?"

"Wayne _Enterprises_ is a multi-billion dollar corporation," Bruce said flatly. That was the biggest gain she had to make from proving that she was his blood relation. But Bonnie laughed, a sad and humorless laugh, and shook her head.

"Money means nothing to me. I want to _help_ you run Wayne Enterprises because I want to be involved. I want to work in the business and know where my father came from, what he did with his life. I want to be a part of the family, whatever ruins of it are left. That business is _our_ father's legacy – no, our _family's_ legacy – and if I'm not a part of that, then I'm nothing. No one will remember me as anything but the 'Girl Who Would be a Wayne.'"

"You honestly want me to believe that my father had an affair with a woman, who then had his illegitimate child, and he was _so_ enamored by the two of them that he would secretly send letters and spend time with them parallel to his _real_ family?" Saying it made his mouth sour, but the disbelieving tone in his voice expressed himself well. It was ridiculous, unfounded, and half-mad of this _girl_ to think that she could stir up some fairytale of being his long-lost sister. She thought to attach to him and slather him in affection and "family values" and "bonding." She thought to soften the hardened, misanthropic heart of Bruce Wayne and get to the warm, cuddly center.

He almost laughed. He could have, if he had tried.

"Yes," she said quietly. "Yes, I want you to believe that you are not alone."

Bruce tensed. "What?"

"You are _not_ alone, Bruce. Your father and your mother were murdered, and even though half the world wept for them, you were alone. You were alone in that mansion, alone for all your life, bottling up that anger and fear and sadness until it burst inside of you. And now it's your shield, and you think it protects you, but you're wrong. I don't want to take _anything_ from you Bruce. I want to _give_ you something. Something that you haven't had since Thomas and Martha Wayne were buried."

His jaw clenched. Bonnie Lately was bold and brave and blunt. He could almost admire that. He humored her. "What do you want to give me?"

"Hope."

"Hope for what?"

"For yourself. Hope that, through all the pain that you endured, you were _never_ alone."

It was good; he would admit to that. She played on the one weakness that he had – his family – and played it well. She knew that if she appealed to him through his suffering that she would cause some old wounds to open, and there she would be, shining bright and white with her words for bandages.

"You're good," he said, "but the only family I have – the only one I _want_ – are my sons, my butler, and the bodies in Gotham Cemetery."

Bonnie Lately, pretty words and neat papers and all, recoiled into her chair. Her eyes glistened wet, but the tears did not come. All the angles in her face hardened as she clenched her jaw, and she titled her head slightly upward, as though to rise above his stab at her.

"Fuck you," she said calmly. She gathered her evidence, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and stormed out.

Mr. Hershaw quickly stopped the tape recorder and began mumbling about a twenty-minute lunch break.

It was when the _click_ of her heels on the tile had started to fade that Bruce had felt something like guilt churn in his stomach. He excused himself, and followed her.


End file.
